30 FOR 30: A MAD COOKIE BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR THE AGES

Last weekend I threw a 30th birthday party. For myself. It was reasonably epic, thanks in large part to the wonderful turn out (thanks, friends!) and the super fun theme: chocolate chip cookies! And not just any chocolate chip cookies—the party was a 'March Madness' style bracket to determine the best chocolate chip cookies in New York City from among 30 contenders (get it? 30 for 30!). (I was inspired by this lovely lady.)

I ate so many cookies that I had a stomach ache for several hours afterwards. Now if that isn't the sign of a good party, I don't know what is!

In planning the fete I took the opportunity to put together a bunch of fun crafty decorations that I thought you might enjoy. After all, now that I have put the idea in your head you are totally going to go out and throw your own cookie party, right?

Click through the link to see some more photos of the fun!

I got a lot of mileage out of the milk and cookies theme, so the refreshments for the party included milk, chocolate milk, and milkshakes, all with the possibility of being laced with Kahlua. These were served in vintage style milk bottles (purchased here) with stripey straws (here) or in tiny sprinkles covered shot glasses (here).

Quick DIY instructions: To make sprinkle covered shot glasses, melt about 1/4 cup of chocolate chips over a double boiler until it reaches a smooth, consistency like that of frosting; dip top edge of shot glasses into the melted chocolate, being careful to dip straight down and lift straight up; then dip the same glass into a large shallow bowl of sprinkles; leave out to cool or put them in the freezer to speed things up; when pouring milk or other light-colored liquid into them, be careful not to pour along the side of the glass, as the dye in the sprinkles will run into your drink (though that could be a cool effect!).

There were, of course, a lot of cookies at the party, so I used a whole bunch of rectangular platters from CB2 (here) to organize them and made small folding signs to label them. Everything rested on a disposable white table cloth that I covered with black butcher paper. We wanted it to be a secret which cookies came from which bakery (though my foodie friend Courtney somehow knew anyway, clever girl!) so the folding signs were actually 'bracket signs' that assigned each cookies a region (North, South, East, West) and a number. Guests were asked to think about certain characteristics for each cookie (gooeyness, crispiness, chocolate chip ratio etc) and vote for their favorite cookie in each region, using a specially designed voting card for the occasion. After all the votes were tallied we had a sudden death taste off of the Final Four cookies: Levain Bakery, Buttermilk Bakeshop, Insomnia Cookies and City Cakes. In this case, unlike the real 2015 March Madness, the top dog won: Levain!

I continued the March Madness/cookie theme by making hand lettered pennant flags advertising fake cookie colleges (Go Chip State!) and filling vases up with the cereal Cookie Crisp, which looks exactly like tiny chocolate chip cookies!

Quick DIY instructions: To make the pennant flags, I used Astrobrights paper (buy it here), which I cut into two matching triangles (to make for thicker paper), attached together via double sided tape and hot glued to small wooden dowels (buy dowels here).

Outside the cookie table, I kept the decorations simple, colorful and fun. I made a ton of paper chain garlands and hung them from the ceiling (forgot to photograph them in situ but there were made from the same Astrobrights paper) and bought some giant 3-0 balloons because it isn't a party without balloons!

Finally, the coup de grace of the party—and perhaps the most memorable part of any party in my mind—was the favors. I love sending guests out of our apartment with a fun little token to remember the event. This time, I modified an adorable milk carton printable I found online (here) and filled them with bags of tiny chocolate chip sandwich cookies, made from Cookie Crisp filled with icing. Cute, no?

Overall, I am very happy with how the party turned out. Turns stuffing your face with sugar makes turning thirty a lot easier, ha!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, filled with friends, fun and cookies or whatever else your heart desires!